The toolkit draws on many sources. A key foundation is provided by Benefits Management, developed by Professor John Ward and others at Cranfield School of Management [intlink id="197" type="page"]See his book with Liz Daniel – Benefits Management (Wiley, 2006)[/intlink].
Benefits Management is “the process of organising and managing such that the potential benefits arising from the use of IT are actually realised.” Its unique contribution is that it provides concepts and techniques to enable management to focus on managing a project to ensure the benefits are realised.
The emphasis is on developing a ‘benefit realisation plan’ that identifies:
- Owners for each benefit / benefit stream – there must be an owner to be included
- Measures related to each benefit – if it the benefit isn’t measurable (in some way) it isn’t a benefit
- Who is going to do what differently – i.e. what business changes are required to deliver the benefits
Benefits planning for a project has two broad phases – each involving a number of activities and tools..
Identify and Structure Benefits
The initial step is to gain a clear understanding of why improvement is needed. This is called ‘driver analysis’ and uses a range of techniques to identify the drivers that are causing the organisation to need to change in some way. Then the ‘investment objectives’ are defined. They represent what the organisation chooses to do in response to the drivers. The next step is to determine what benefits are to be delivered from the investment that will result in the objectives being met.
Plan Benefits Realisation
The benefits realisation plan differs from a traditional business case in a number of important respects. Specifically the plan focuses on ownership of the benefits and delivery of the benefits i.e. what business changes are required to realise the benefits and who is responsible for making them happen.
The plan is the set of change programmes that will cause the benefits to appear. It is separate from the technical implementation plan but of course depends on the latter to introduce the enabling technology.
Using the benefits realisation plan: the benefits realisation plan provides subtle but fundamental shifts from a traditional business case or investment proposal: benefits are linked to customers and other stakeholders; benefits owners are identified; changes required to realise the benefits are the key focus of planning and project activity. The benefits realisation plan also includes the elements of the business case and is the result of a series of planning activities.
Making a start: it is usually very effective to pilot the adoption of a benefits driven approach and the benefits realisation plan on one or more pilot projects.
Our services: the benefits realisation plan is an important part of our approach to project planning and initiation. In our leadership programmes we help you develop confidence in developing the plan as part of a benefits-driven approach to planning.